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By Root 751 0

"The face looks snobbish," said one. "I think they call these Barbie because they are so sharp," said another. And a third used Barbie to reveal her ambivalence about the role of feminine artifice in snaring a mate: "I would like her better if there was a little less eye makeup . . . if she was a little less glamorous. But how else could she attract boy dolls?" The one girl who wanted no part of the doll, "who held her in her hand at some distance," was dismissed as a hopeless tomboy. All that interested her, the report says dismissively, were "sport clothes."

Although some girls said the doll's neck was "too long, and her figure and legs too thin," Barbie's body nevertheless gave her an edge over her rivals. Ginny, a potbellied, pug-nosed, flat-chested, eight-inch fashion doll that had been made in hard plastic by Vogue Dolls, Inc., since 1950, was as good as dead; her owners were eager to dump her and her "cheesily-made" clothes for Barbie. But Miss Revlon, a doll made in two sizes by Ideal Toy &Novelty Corporation, would be harder to defeat. She had incipient breasts, feet poised for high heels, and a less threatening body. "I like Revlon dolls the best," one girl explained. "They are . . . fatter."

Dichter also made marketing suggestions, which Mattel followed to the letter. He urged the company to package each outfit with a catalog of available clothing and with coupons to obtain other outfits at a reduced price. (In 1967, the doll itself became a coupon; girls traded in their original Barbies for a price break on the revamped Twist 'N Turn model.)

A lesser manipulator might have been daunted by the mothers' unvarnished loathing of the doll, but not Dichter. He swiftly located their Achilles' heel and formulated a plan to exploit it. One woman, who had found Barbie way too racy, changed her mind when she heard her eight-year-old daughter comment, "She's so well groomed, Mommy." Out of this came Dichter's strategy: Convince Mom that Barbie will make a "poised little lady" out of her raffish, unkempt, possibly boyish child. Underscore the outfits' detailing, and the way it might teach a roughneck to accessorize. Remind Mom what she believes deep down but dares not express: Better her daughter should appeal in a sleazy way to a man than be unable to attract one at all.

"The type of arguments which can be used successfully to overcome parental objection are in the area of the doll's function in awakening in the child a concern with proper appearance," the report says. And, as with all controversial toys, a well-coached child is the doll's best salesperson.

"The child exerts a certain amount of pressure, the effectiveness of which depends on his [or her] ability to argue sensibly with an adult," the report explains. "The toy advertiser can help the child by providing him [or her] with arguments which will satisfy mother."

Draft arguments to sway parents: Carson/Roberts had its marching orders; its campaign, in fact, was already under way. No stranger to hawking glamour— Hollywood makeup legend Max Factor was its other big client—it decided to introduce Barbie as a fashion model. Agency cofounder Jack Roberts, who made the sets for her first commercials, and copywriter Cy Schneider, who wrote them, strategically ignored the fact that Barbie was a thing; they imaged her as a living teenager and invented a life for her that was as glamorous and American as Lilli's had been tawdry and foreign. "The positioning from the very first commercial was that she was a person," said Schneider. "We never mentioned the fact that she was a doll."

Unhampered by current guidelines that force advertisers to show toys realistically, Schneider and Roberts animated Barbie. Head tilting, arms moving, she glided into outfit after outfit—from beach dates to high state occasions. Never mind that Ken wasn't even on the drawing board, the early spots showed Barbie's wedding dress, a celestial vision in white flocked tulle. Barbie didn't mince, as one might expect on her tiny feet. She floated. She was a teenage fashion model, and the world was